Sidekicks
by ifonlynotnever
Summary: ONE SHOT. One sided slash: JohnBobby. Pyrocentric. Unrelated to Triangles. Everyone knows the role of the hero and the role of the sidekick.


_**Sidekicks**_

**_Disclaimer:_** Ownership of X-Men belongs to Marvel and other such entities. Twinkies belong to Hostess, I believe, but in case they don't, well, I don't own them either.

**_Warning: _**Shounen-ai, yaoi, slash, m/m… Whatever you wanna call it. And it's really kinda bad. Ramble-ish.

**_Note:_** This is completely unrelated to the _Triangles_ series. I swear.

* * *

There are no such things as sidekicks. 

There are heroes and there are people who aren't heroes. Sidekicks are wannabes. Sidekicks are non-existent entities who boost their hero's egos.

Heroes are supposed to be handsome; sidekicks are supposed to be attractive in a discreet way. Heroes are supposed to be wholesome and appear in milk commercials; sidekicks are the ones who are admonished after they take their first puff on a cigarette. Heroes have sports drinks named after them; sidekicks _drink_ the sports drinks. Heroes are always oh-so-faithful to one woman and one woman alone; sidekicks get dumped by girls all the time.

Or they're never even noticed by girls.

Bobby is wholesome and handsome; he doesn't exactly have a sports drink named after him, but the Twinkie Sundae (yummy Twinkies topped with vanilla ice cream, lots of chocolate syrup, Twinkie filling, and sprinkled with the remainder of the Twinkie) is his creation and his alone.

And of course, he has Marie. The Rogue ex-wanderer whose powers aren't all that unpredictable—they're just really, really dangerous.

Rogue is… beautiful. In her own way, oh yeah, she's beautiful. Hot. A goddess.

She's got that body and that skin and those eyes and that smile. Her only imperfection (aside from an incapability to touch bare skin against bare skin) is that silver skunk stripe through her otherwise luxurious hair, and she makes even that seem really, really… exotic and cool and hot and…

They're really, _really_ hung up on each other.

If it were any other guy, if it were any other girl, then hell, John would've already made his move.

He'd have made his move.

But they're a dream couple. They're perfect. They're shy when they need to be, and they're playful when the time is right, and keep everything as 'G' rated as possible, even though it's so obvious they want to be somewhere on the 'PG-13' level.

And they're his best friends.

Sometimes, it just makes John sick.

Sometimes it makes John roll his eyes.

And sometimes it makes John just want to leave. Leave the Xavier Mansion because it's crap. It's all crap. There's no such thing as being 'gifted' when you're a mutant. You're cursed with all the shit that people—_humans_: Homo sapiens sapiens as opposed to the Homo superior—dump on you because of your genes.

And it's not your fault.

It's not John's fault.

He didn't ask to be born like this. He didn't ask to be one of the dangerous ones, either.

It isn't his fault…

But then, is it ever the sidekick's fault? No. He is easily manipulated by outside forces—by fate, if you will—so that he's shown to be oh-so-imperfect when juxtaposed with the immaculate hero.

And that's why the girl chooses the hero. She sees his purity in comparison with the tainted stains left on the very being of the sidekick.

She sees the friendliness, the beauty, the innocence in Bobby's ice blue eyes, even though it isn't supposed to be possible.

It's not supposed to be possible.

Not possible.

Oh, God.

Why does it have to be this way? Why does everything have to be so—fucking—twisted? Why can't he just leave and forget about it and never have to be so confused and stupid and broken up again? Never again, never again, never again.

Never.

In bed, in the room that he's supposed to share with Robert William Drake, John stares at the clock, which is slowly becoming blurred by tears that struggle to fall but that are so—fucking—stupid and that he doesn't want to let fall because that means he's weak and he can't handle anything and—and—

Bobby shifts, turning to face John across the room in the other bed.

"You still up?" he inquires groggily.

"…Yeah." Pyro can only hope that his dorm-mate is too sleepy to catch the way that one word is burdened with so much emotion barely held back by a dam so cracked and poorly mended that it may as well not be there at all.

"…Okay," Bobby mumbles, and turns over again.

John hates it. He hates the system. He hates the world. He hates it.

It happens every time. Every time. Emotions suck because they're easily manipulated and easily revealed and every time that his emotions get out of control, he starts losing his sense of self and feels like he's losing his mind.

The hero is supposed to be strait-laced and wonderful in general. There are _rules_ governing the way that a hero just… _is_. And one of those is that the hero does not carry on a triple life. The hero leads his "normal" life as a regular man in society—a model citizen who just happens to have a couple of parking tickets on his record. And then there's his second life as a superhero—fighting crime and saving and kissing pretty women and throwing criminals in jail.

And that's it.

There's no third life where he screws his sidekick. It doesn't happen. Ever.

John doesn't shiver when a cold frost sweeps over the room.

Because this is Bobby. Right here. This cold, icy texture that melts the instant it touches John's heated skin—it's Bobby.

And John closes his eyes, fingertips skirting along the ice forming along surfaces, from the bedside table to the cartilage of his ear, to the watch that John forgot to take off before bed.

And before long he sleeps and the ice melts and he dreams of the triple life that he wishes Bobby would lead.

Because Bobby is the hero. And he has no time for his sidekick.

* * *

**Author's Space**

Who expected that one? It's quite a departure from the slightly more humorous _Triangles_ series.

Super-special thanks go to Eric and Thomas, my brothers, who gave me so much help.

No, it's not just Homo sapiens. It's Homo sapiens sapiens.

I seem to remember Bobby's middle name being 'William'.

Please review. If you want to add it to a C2, _please_ tell me first. Thanks.

Love,

fluorescent


End file.
